Abstract
Optical laser communications allows for a wireless ‘fiber-in-the-sky’ and enables terabit-per-second datarates. Such datarates are unprecedented in the radio frequency domain, especially for long-distance communications. During this presentation an overview of the key use cases, techniques, challenges and opportunities for optical laser communications are provided. There is particular emphasis on the role of photonics and how (integrated) photonics can facilitate the next generation of laser communication terminals.